WE must go back a few hours in the progress of our story. At the first
grey dawn of the day, which Glaucus had already marked with white, the
Egyptian was seated, sleepless and alone, on the summit of the lofty and
pyramidal tower which flanked his house. A tall parapet around it
served as a wall, and conspired, with the height of the edifice and the
gloomy trees that girded the mansion, to defy the prying eyes of
curiosity or observation. A table, on which lay a scroll, filled with
mystic figures, was before him. On high, the stars waxed dim and faint,
and the shades of night melted from the sterile mountain-tops; only
above Vesuvius there rested a deep and massy cloud, which for several
days past had gathered darker and more solid over its summit. The
struggle of night and day was more visible over the broad ocean, which
stretched calm, like a gigantic lake, bounded by the circling shores
that, covered with vines and foliage, and gleaming here and there with
the white walls of sleeping cities, sloped to the scarce rippling waves.

It was the hour above all others most sacred to the daring science of
the Egyptian--the science which would read our changeful destinies in
the stars.

He had filled his scroll, he had noted the moment and the sign; and,
leaning upon his hand, he had surrendered himself to the thoughts which
his calculation excited.

'Again do the stars forewarn me! Some danger, then, assuredly awaits
me!' said he, slowly; 'some danger, violent and sudden in its nature.
The stars wear for me the same mocking menace which, if our chronicles
do not err, they once wore for Pyrrhus--for him, doomed to strive for
all things, to enjoy none--all attacking, nothing gaining--battles
without fruit, laurels without triumph, fame without success; at last
made craven by his own superstitions, and slain like a dog by a tile
from the hand of an old woman! Verily, the stars flatter when they give
me a type in this fool of war--when they promise to the ardour of my
wisdom the same results as to the madness of his ambition--perpetual
exercise--no certain goal!--the Sisyphus task, the mountain and the
stone!--the stone, a gloomy image!--it reminds me that I am threatened
with somewhat of the same death as the Epirote. Let me look again.
"Beware," say the shining prophets, "how thou passest under ancient
roofs, or besieged walls, or overhanging cliffs--a stone hurled from
above, is charged by the curses of destiny a